Beacon Notice – Health First Colorado

Beacon Notice – Health First Colorado Update Effective July 01, 2018

Providers may have received a notice from Beacon Health Options with new information about the Health First Colorado Update Effective July 01, 2018. This notice is being sent to all providers who currently provide mental or behavioral health care in the El Paso County area for Medicaid patients.

Effective July 01, 2018 Beacon Health Options will no longer manage or provide payment and claim services for El Paso County Medicaid. The new contract provider will be Colorado Community Health Alliance. Colorado Community Health Alliance has indicated credentialing items are not yet available.

Here are some important informational items providers should know:

1. All claims and payments services will continue to work the same thru June 30, 2018
2. Each Mental Health provider will need to be contracted with the Regional Accountable Entity (RAE) that they provide services to (there are a total of 7 RAEs for Colorado see: https://ponderosabilling.com/accountable-care-collaborative-phase-ii/ for more information on this)
   1. If you see patients from multiple counties you should pursue contracts with each county contractor.
3. To provide Colorado Medicaid care, you must be credentialed with your county RAE.
4. Medical providers will have an RAE based upon the brick and mortar location of their office.
5. All Colorado Medicaid patients will automatically be enrolled to an RAE and assigned a primary care provider. The primary care provider is what determines their RAE assignment.
   1. For instance, a patient whose primary care provider is in Arapahoe county, and has moved to Colorado Springs would still have to see a Mental Health Provider who is credentialed with the Region 3 (Colorado Access) not Region 7 (Colorado Community Health Alliance)
   2. The only alternative to this would be to change the patients primary care provider to one in Colorado Springs (Region 7).
      1. Once the change has completed the behavioral health provider would also be in Colorado Springs
6. There is no information available to begin the credentialing process that Mental Health Care providers must complete. Once information becomes available we will let our providers know!

Information obtained from: https://www.colorado.gov/hcpf/accphase2